Much of the conversation had to do with whether Syndergaard deserved to be ejected for throwing a pitch behind Chase Utley. The pitch, a fastball, flew so wide that Utley didn’t even flinch to try to avoid it. It was almost certainly a response to Utley’s devastating takeout of Ruben Tejada during last season’s playoffs. Also, it was entirely harmless, though plate ump Adam Hamari—who had clearly been prepped on preceding events—failed to see it that way.

Other parts of the conversation had to do with Utley’s handling of things. After finishing the at-bat against reliever Logan Verrett by striking out, he offered the best response possible—he homered twice, including a grand slam, in what became a 9-1 victory at Citi Field.

Which brings us back to timing. Saturday was the fifth meeting between the teams this year, and the eighth overall (counting the postseason) since Utley broke Tejada’s leg. This leaves us with an overarching question: why now?

Utley was omitted from the lineup for Game 3 of the NLDS, the one following the mishap, and New York pitchers opted against taking their frustrations out on other Dodgers. He pinch-hit in the deciding Game 5, but that was a one-run playoff game, which trumped any thoughts of retaliation.

This year’s meetings looked like this:

May 9: Utley gets two at-bats, both with the Mets trying to protect a 4-2 lead.

May 10: Every one of Utley’s four at-bats comes with the game tied.

May 11: Utley comes up four times, with the game tied or New York leading by no more than two runs.

May 12: Utley bats in the first inning with the game tied; in the second inning with the Dodgers leading, 4-0 (and hits a solo homer); and in the fifth and seventh innings with the Dodgers leading 5-0.

May 27: All of Utley’s at-bats come with the Mets holding no more than a three-run lead, until the eighth, when he hits in a 5-1 game (and strikes out).

May 28: Syndergaard drills him.

So what happened? If the Mets were inclined to retaliate, the obvious situations would have been on May 12 and one at-bat on May 27. There’s little chance that Terry Collins would order such a thing from on high (he’s already gone on the record against perpetuation of grudge matches), so deductive reasoning says that the pitchers Utley faced—Bartolo Colon and Sean Gilmartin in the former game, Jerry Blevins in the latter—simply had no stomach for this type of confrontation.

Deductive reasoning also says that Syndergaard probably did.

Still, there’s no getting around the duration between Utley’s perceived offense and Syndergaard’s response. The pitcher himself probably acknowledged as much with his weapon of choice—a non-contact fastball so far off its mark that Utley would have had a tough time throwing himself into it to earn an HBP.

In other words: perfect. Message sent, no harm done.

Except that Hamari refused to play along. Usually, we’re stuck with clueless umpires whose lack of boning up on prior history between teams leads to some tense moments. This was the opposite of that. Had Hamari taken even a moment to consider the events as they happened, he would have leveled a warning and both sides would have likely considered things even.

Chalk this one up as a win for the Dodgers, both literally and figuratively.

It’s not that teams and players don’t have long memories, or that they aren’t willing to wait weeks, months and, in some situations, years for retribution. (In his final season as a pitcher—indeed, in his final game—Bob Gibson was unable to retaliate against Pete LaCock for the perceived slight of having hit a grand slam against him. So he waited 15 years until they met in an old-timers’ game, then drilled him in the back.)

The thing about the Royals allegedly being angry, though, is that Syndergaard didn’t do anything wrong.

As a power pitcher, it is his right to establish tone, and the inside fastball is a valid weapon in any pitcher’s arsenal. With his first pitch of the game, the right-hander threw head-high at 98 mph to Alcides Escobar, one of Kansas City’s hottest hitters and a first-pitch swinger.

Thing is, the pitch didn’t come close to hitting Escobar. It didn’t even cross the line of the batter’s box. When catcher Travis d’Arnaud reached up to catch it, his glove shot straight into the sky, not toward the hitter.

And it worked. Escobar, shaken, struck out.

There’s no reason for the Royals to like this kind of tactic, but neither can they decry it as worthy of retaliation. (It’s their option to feed Syndergaard some of the same, but if that was the endgame there was little reason not to do it at the time.)

So why, one might ask, would the Royals still be holding on to it all these months later? The answer, at least according to K.C. manager Ned Yost, is, they’re not.

“Our retribution,” he said in the Kansas City Star, “was winning the World Series.”

Similar sentiments were echoed around the clubhouse.

Edinson Volquez: “There’s nothing wrong with what he did last year.”

Former Met Dillon Gee: “I’ve been here all spring, and I don’t think I’ve really heard anybody even bring up the Mets.”

The best reason to believe the Royals is because the report that sparked the controversy was so unbelievable in the first place. Newsday’s Marc Carig cited “multiple industry sources” as the basis of his report, whatever that means, but on its face the story was little more than shit stirring on a slow news day.

In this regard, Yost is already on his game, offering more pointed insight than any journalist could offer.

“Some buffoon writes something,” he said, “and you guys are gonna jump like little monkeys in a cage for a peanut.”

So Noah Syndergaard thought he’d grab a between-meals bite during a Mets scrimmage in Florida. David Wright and Bobby Parnell thought better, tossing his food into the trash and pointing him back toward the dugout.

A big deal, this refusal to let rookies eat during games in which they’re not even participating? More of the hazing upon which society has so firmly turned? Hardly. As a rookie, Syndergaard has a lot of baseball to learn, and, as the Mets vets so ably demonstrated, he’s not going to learn much of it indoors with his nose in a plate of baked beans. On their own the young pitcher’s actions are hardly offensive, but Wright and Parnell have taken the admirable tack of setting tone in the clubhouse, making it clear to young players and veterans alike that full effort is more than just a suggestion. That includes paying attention during games; one never knows what one might pick up.

It’s a throwback move. Ron Fairly told his own story about coming up with the Dodgers: “You had to show Pee Wee [Reese] you wanted to play this game of baseball—show him how badly you wanted to play. Pee Wee said he’d take a guy of lesser ability who really wants to play than a guy with a lot of ability who doesn’t give it a good effort all the time. Pee Wee was the captain, the one that controlled that, and if he ignored you, the other players would ignore you.”